Bright Before Sunrise(26)

And I’m not done.

I follow him and stand at the bottom of the stairs, calling up in an angry whisper, “How in the world have I ‘messed up your life’? By being kind to you?”

He slams the door to his room.

I’m left pink cheeked and open mouthed.

I storm back to the kitchen and put the milk and chocolate syrup away, shutting the fridge door with more force than is really necessary but less force than would be satisfying.

I lean against the fridge and reassure myself he’s wrong. I’m not a snob. That brown-haired, gray-eyed girl whose mortification is reflected on the smudge-free surface of the Sheas’ sliding glass doors is not a snob. I turn away from myself.

I put Jonah’s spoon in the dishwasher and wipe the counter with a wet paper towel.

I’m so tempted to stomp up those stairs and make him listen. He’s wrong—high school isn’t a pyramid with all the power clustered in a chosen few at the top—it’s more of a movie theater with twenty-two screens showing simultaneously. The love story in theater three doesn’t care what happens on the football field in theater twelve. Actors and audiences overlap on the screen and in the hallways, but there’s a place for everyone. If Jonah hasn’t found his, that’s not my fault. I’ve been more than welcoming.

An explosion of video game noises interrupts my thoughts, making me jump and drop the glass I’m carrying to the sink. His glass. The chocolate sludge from the bottom splashes onto the kitchen floor as I bobble it. The glass lands on the tile with a sharp clink but doesn’t break. A minor miracle tonight. I pick it up, double-check it for chips and cracks, then lean against the counter for a second before grabbing a sponge to wipe the floor. Just as I’m thinking, He’s going to wake the baby, Sophia screeches through the monitor and the garage door goes up.

Mrs. Shea opens the door. “Hi, Brighton! How’d everything—Sophia! Is she okay?”

“She just started crying. I was on my way to get her.” I toss the sponge in the sink and wonder if I should still go get the baby or let her mother do it.

Mr. Shea appears in the doorway. “Let me guess, Jonah’s video games? Go check Sophia, dear. I’m going to have a talk with him.” He bellows, “Jonah! Turn that down!”

They both rush up the stairs, leaving me purposeless. I head into the living room to retrieve my purse and put away Dad’s book.

I play with my phone; texting Amelia: I’ll b home soon. Call me after u leave Peters. I can’t wait to tell her the whole story and have her get all worked up—not that I want her to hate Jonah.

I just want to listen to her rant for a while and tell me that I’m right.

Instead I’m stuck staring at my father’s photo on the back cover of his book and trying to shrug off words that shouldn’t have stuck. Teflon.

Mrs. Shea coos at Sophia, her soothing noises broadcast over the baby monitor. I can hear Mr. Shea’s and Jonah’s angry voices too. It all makes me cringe. Family drama should be kept private; I feel like an unwilling voyeur.

“Sophia was sleeping. Did you even consider that before you decided to turn your TV to hearing-damage levels?” Mr. Shea’s voice is hardly quiet. He’s speaking loud enough for the baby monitor to pick up his words.

It doesn’t catch Jonah’s reply.

“You never do think of others, do you? Go. Drive the babysitter home. I can’t even look at you right now.”





15

Jonah

8:28 P.M.


ROAD RAGE


Brighton’s in the living room, looking at me with pity while pretending not to. I guess she heard Paul’s lecture in all its condescending glory.

“Doing some reading?” I ask, gesturing to the book in her hand.

“What?”

“So tell me, what’s your favorite part?” I’d paged through Mom’s margin notes once. It had been crap like: Was Jonah overly attached to his imaginary friends? And So true! Jonah did wet the bed. I can only imagine what ammunition Brighton’s collected to go tell her minions.

She’s blinking a ton and tracing the cover. “Um, I’ve always liked his whole idea of ‘doing one thing every day to make the world better.’” She swallows and gives me a look that I’m supposed to believe is sincere.

I’m biting my tongue so hard, I’m shocked I don’t taste blood. Mom probably wrote a whole list of bathroom-mirror sticky-note quotes. Probably added things like, how when I was seven, I used to answer, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with “I want to help the Easter Bunny.” Or how when I was twelve, I’d written a letter to every player on the Red Sox and asked them to help out a family in our neighborhood whose house had burned down. How, up until January, I’d tutored at the after-school program at one of Hamilton’s elementary schools. How I used to be a kid she was proud of.

“You tell anyone anything that you learned about me from my mom’s highlighting and stuff, and I will tell them their perfect girl is a psycho stalker I caught going through my underwear drawer.”

“No! What? It’s not like that.” She shuts the book and stands, touching the cover almost reverently and taking far too long to slide it back on the shelf. “It’s just that … You see … My dad …”